A Night Divided: Chapters 1–15

Hatred between the east and west was growing, and Berlin seemed caught in the center of what the world described as a cold war, a standoff of loud threats and puffed-out chests.

Eight years ago, my father had been involved in some worker uprisings in Berlin.

“They have a lot to do in the home and the garden,” he sang as he began pantomiming the words.

The people around me had already given a name to this day: Barbed Wire Sunday. The day that divided a city, and eventually a country.

My schoolteacher taught us a new song that thanked our leaders for building a wall to keep the fascists out.

She worked very hard to stay out of trouble, which made her an ideal friend for me.

Today felt uncommonly cold.

I was enduring it and hoping not to arrive at school frostbitten.

I didn’t know what was on them, but from the terse expression on the officer’s face, it was obviously something more than party invitations or store coupons.

Of course it did, but he had the gun, so I only looked down while Mama made humble apologies for my boldness and gripped my wrist like a vise.

Of course it did, but he had the gun, so I only looked down while Mama made humble apologies for my boldness and gripped my wrist like a vise.

He seemed to recognize me too, or at least he waved. I raised my hand back at him, although such a simple gesture was far too casual for the importance of this moment.

Our strength came from the collective; every schoolteacher I’d ever had said that until it played in my head like a skipping record. Individuality was a weakness, a sickness of the west.

We lived on the fourth floor of a drab apartment building that looked more or less like all the other apartment buildings. That wasn’t an accident. Beautiful things were signs of individuality.

Wherever possible, Mama had tried to provide some beauty inside the apartment, but still, our furnishings were spare and simple.

So if he went as far as admitting it had been a hard day, that meant something awful had happened, or would soon. Fritz met my eyes and offered a grim smile, but he looked away when Mama turned to me and asked, “What about your day, Gerta? You had a Pioneer meeting?”

I hated that wall, and resented my mother every time she tried to make me accept it.

She wanted us to buy the censored albums instead, but that missed the whole point of rock and roll. Nobody wanted “approved music.”

The weather was trivial. So were the books in her hands, and her annoyance with the boy who pulled her hair when the teacher wasn’t looking.

With that second line, my father pretended to hold a shovel and dig, but when he should’ve moved to the rake, he only continued the digging motions, looking up at me very deliberately, and then made a silly bow, just as he had when we used to do the song together years earlier.

So much of Berlin had been destroyed in the war, and even now, twenty years later, piles of rubble were still strewn about the city.

She told me to stay back while she talked to the job foreman.

The rest of his room was in disarray, with drawers pulled out and books thrown onto his bed, but nothing else seemed to be damaged.

Fritz stacked a few sticks of wood in our fireplace and grabbed a handful of papers to use as kindling.

“The Stasi view escape on the same level as treason. So they’ll embarrass and shame Peter’s family now. They’ll have to work extra hard to prove their loyalty to the state.”

But he never committed any crimes or incited anyone to violence.

Every time we walked home, my eyes did inevitably wander to the wall in the west.

Someone told them about Peter’s death and they sent us a letter of consolation.

And though I wanted to believe the Stasi couldn’t find anything wrong with my mother’s simple gift, I wasn’t that naïve, not anymore.

Who wagers nothing, he wins nothing.
—German proverb

I had hoped for an uneventful walk there, but a young girl hauling a big shovel through the city is hardly inconspicuous.

I had to use the shovel to pry the boards loose, but I finally managed to open up a small gap, then slide through it.

The only light came in slivers between the wood boards across the windows and painted creepy, dusty shadows.

When I brushed off the dirt, I saw grooves cut into one side and hinges on the other.

His attempt to sound positive came out sounding sarcastic and brittle.